


The Beekeeper's Apprentice

by qwanderer



Series: My Dear Doctor [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mentions of addiction, Post-Episode: s02e22 The Wire, Pre-Slash, The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: in which the Garashir book club discusses both Preloc and Doyle and decides to read The Beekeeper's Apprentice





	The Beekeeper's Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes are from The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, which I highly recommend. This fic contains few and small spoilers for the early scenes of the book. Feel free to read the fic first.

_"And," I said, warming to the topic, "what happens when her equal comes along, another queen with which she might have something in common? They are both forced - for the good of the hive - to fight to the death."_

\- Mary Russell upon first meeting Sherlock Holmes, _The Beekeeper's Apprentice_ , Laurie R. King 

* * *

There wasn't supposed to be any pain. Not anymore. But he'd felt... a flicker. 

It must have been his imagination. 

But no. There it was again. This was the end, then. The implant was failing. 

It had to happen just at the wrong time, too, while he and Bashir navigated the lunchtime rush. Once the doctor knew there was something wrong, he would not give up easily. 

It wouldn't help. Nothing would help. Slipping away, unnoticed, would have been better. 

But no. Here he was, a wretched addict coming to his inevitable, undignified end. And here was the good English doctor, a witness to it all. Pushing for more, for information about the implant, the Obsidian Order, his exile. 

Garak didn't have the strength anymore to hold any of it back. 

"...And left me to live out my days with nothing to look forward to but having lunch with you!" 

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I thought you enjoyed my company." 

"I did. And that's the worst part. I can't believe that I actually enjoyed eating mediocre food and staring into at your smug, sanctimonious face. I hate this place and I hate you!" 

* * *

Well. He'd lived. And still, what was there to live for except those lunches? Garak supposed he'd have to do what he could to rebuild that bridge, the only one he had, the one he might have burned down in his agony. 

He looked through what he had access to in his collection that might suit a young man who'd come as far out in space as Starfleet would send him, an idealistic and intrigue-loving but also remarkably intelligent young man. 

Hmm. Preloc's Meditations on a Crimson Shadow might do. 

* * *

"So you like this?" Bashir asked, twiddling the isolinear rod in his fingers. "It's not The Neverending Sacrifice." 

"How astute of you," Garak replied with barely a twitch of his lips. "No, it's not. It is, as you might say, a completely different beast. Written in a different time, for a different purpose." 

"Does this have a purpose?" Julian asked. "Other than to entertain, I mean? It seems like exactly the type of escapist adventure that doesn't have to mean anything more than that it's fun." 

Garak clicked his tongue. "Every piece of literature has a purpose," he argued. 

"So what is the purpose of this delightful space adventure?" Julian asked, eyes glinting. 

"In this context?" Garak said. "Well, why don't you tell me something you learned from the experience of having read it." 

"I learned," Julian drawled, "that you thought I would enjoy reading it. You were right, by the way." 

"Well, now," Garak said. "Isn't that interesting." 

The doctor chuckled. "I suppose it is." He tapped the rod lightly on the table, then looked up at Garak, a little hesitant. "But you never answered my question. Did you recommend this because you like it? Or only because you thought I would?" 

Garak took a breath, and cocked his head. "I have to admit, it isn't something I'd read with only my own tastes in mind." 

"You really do prefer The Neverending Sacrifice, don't you?" He sounded a little sad. 

Garak turned that over in his head before answering. "Context is everything," he said. "And perhaps a Federation lunch table is not the place for The Neverending Sacrifice." 

Julian looked him in the eyes and said, "I'd like this to be the right place for it. I'd like to understand it." 

"Would you really?" Garak asked. 

He nodded. "I would, really." 

And Garak could almost believe he was answering the question Garak had really meant to ask. 

Still, he sighed a little. Such a thing would not be easy, not for either of them. "Don't strain yourself unduly, Doctor," he said. "We find ourselves, in any given piece of literature, or we don't. Don't expect to find anyone other than the consummate Cardassian in The Neverending Sacrifice." 

"And that's you, is it?" Julian asked. 

Garak's only answer was a smile. 

Bashir looked back at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Have you ever read any Sherlock Holmes?" he asked. 

He turned narrowed eyes on the doctor. "Why?" Garak devoutly hoped the man didn't know how long he'd kept a copy of Doyle's work tucked away, or somehow suspect the related and more embarrassing fact that the young, mischievous English doctor walking onto the station had been a desperate daydream brought to life. 

Julian laughed, misunderstanding the suspicious look. "No, I wouldn't try and get you to read it if you hadn't. As much as Fleming and Doyle and the rest of the classics of early British suspense are part of me, I do see how they could bore or frustrate someone who's actually lived with that kind of suspense." He shrugged. "Or a plain, simple tailor who can't imagine himself in the role of a detective or a spy." 

Garak suspected that the truth, or at least one small part of it, would serve him best now. "It's one of the first pieces of Earth literature I ever attempted to read," he said. "Truly fascinating. The idiom and imagery that are derived from it still permeate your language, all these centuries later." 

"Know your enemies?" the doctor asked. 

"Or your customers, perhaps," Garak playfully evaded. 

"And that was all you got out of some of the most sensational literature of its time? Simply some knowledge about humans?" 

"Doctor, even you should know that it's no use trying to cut the fabric for a coat until you have the measure of the person who will be wearing it." 

Julian made a moue. "That wasn't a yes," he remarked. Then he leaned forward, to say in a stage whisper, "I think you liked it." 

"And if I did," Garak asked curiously, "what would that tell you?" 

He looked at Garak, and his head tilted to one side, then the other. "Did you see yourself in Holmes?" he asked, and then, without waiting long for an answer, "Let me guess. His Last Bow is your favorite." 

The doctor was getting rather close for comfort, there. 

Garak shook his head. "The stories were scattered," he said. "Disorganized. I don't know how all you humans stand them." 

"I tend to approach them with a Watsonian perspective, myself," Julian said with a smirk. "Many of the apparent imperfections of the stories can actually add to its richness, if you look at them as signs that Watson, the chronicler, was only human and not entirely perfect. It's something we refer to as an 'unreliable narrator.'" 

Garak frowned theatrically. "Why, doctor, what good is a story if you can't trust the person telling it?" 

Julian's expression said he knew he was being teased. He grinned warmly for a minute before replying earnestly, "Oh, the things they don't say can tell you just as much as the things they do." 

"And do you see yourself in Holmes?" Garak asked. "Or in Watson?" 

"Sometimes," Bashir said. "Sometimes Watson's limited perspective frustrates me. I'd like to meet Homes as he was, or would have been, not as Watson sees him. There's more to the character, I think." 

Garak leaned forward this time, interested. "And what do you think you would see?" 

Julian smiled. "I think if I were to guess, that would say more about me than about the character," he evaded. 

Now this was an interesting game. There was some piece of information Julian wanted to impart, but it seemed like he was going to make Garak work for it. 

"That's no less incentive for me to be curious," he told the doctor. "After all, why should I value insight into Doyle's intention over insight into the mind at hand? The tastes currently relevant, as it were?" 

"I suppose there's something to that," Julian said. "You know, Holmes has been written over and over again since he was invented by Doyle, in different ways, from different perspectives, for different audiences." 

"Pale imitations, as a rule, I suppose," Garak said, pushing for more. "Spare me the sentimental yearning for days gone by that is inevitably the product of trying to reproduce the same story time and again." 

"Says the man who champions the repetitive epic." Julian shook his head. 

"My dear doctor," Garak scoffed, "continuity of a single story among generations of people is _life_. Dwelling on a single life of a single character for generations of writers is _stagnation_." 

It was an elegant lie. He looked forward to hearing the doctor counter it. 

"Perhaps. But then, will Dax ever tire of telling the stories of her former lives? Is it ever really the same story? When Jadzia talks about something Tobin got up to, is it really the same story that Curzon would have told? Or is it a new story, dependent on the voice of the teller and the assumptions of the audience?" 

Garak changed his mind. Hearing how fascinated Julian was by trills in general and Dax in particular was not how he wanted to spend his lunch. A little sourly, he said, "I really wouldn't know." 

"Hum," said Julian, looking at him contemplatively, a wrinkle between his brows. Then he shook himself, and took out an isolinear rod. "Well, you can tell me if you still think that after you've read this." 

"What is it?" Garak asked, taking the little rod, eyeing his reward. 

"The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Written more than sixty years after the death of Arthur Conan Doyle." 

Well. That did sound somewhat interesting. 

* * *

Garak began the book with a multitude of questions on many levels. Context was everything. The doctor had given this book to him, now, for a reason. How much did he know? How much suspected? How much was gleaned simply from watching Garak's face, reading it with an aptitude Garak hadn't thought him capable of? 

There were some layers of the message that were immediately transparent. Holmes was retired, of course. A simple beekeeper. His young friend was as fascinated by him as he was charmed by her. It was certainly written in a more incisive, organized style than Doyle's, and clearly due to the perspective of this new character, Mary Russell. Holmes was still Holmes, in all the ways that mattered. 

And then, the new chronicler met the old. 

_He was looking at me with such complete, unaffected pleasure that I simply could not think what to do, so I just stood there. Stupidly._

_"Miss Russell, I am so very happy to meet you at last. I will speak quickly because I think Holmes is about to arise. I wanted to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for what you have done for my friend in the last few months. Had I read it in a casebook I would not have believed it, but I see and believe."_

_"You see what?" I said. Stupidly. Like a buffoon._

_"I'm sure you knew that he was ill, though not perhaps how ill. I watched him and despaired, for I knew that at that rate he would not see a second summer, possibly not even the new year. But since May he has put on half a stone, his heartbeat is strong, his colour good, and Mrs. Hudson says he sleeps - irregularly, as always, but he sleeps. He says he has even given up the cocaine to which he was rapidly becoming addicted - given it up. I believe him. And I thank you, with all my soul, for you have done what my skills could not, and brought back my truest friend from the grave."_

This was an artful blow if ever there was one, delivered subtly at first, and then falling like a hammer. The Holmes Garak had seen himself in had always contained that potential to fall, to become a wretched addict merely waiting for death. And here he was, but that wasn't all he was. Never, even at his lowest moment. 

Garak hadn't even seen it, because the perspective had been Russell's, and Russell hadn't truly noticed. Had never focused on Holmes's health. 

What this communicated most vividly was a complete lack of pity. Despite everything, Russell had enjoyed Holmes's company for the sheer joy of their conversations, for what she learned from him. The concern was all the professional concern of the doctor, and had no bearing on the motivation Russell had had to remain close. 

How lucky Holmes was to have found her. 

How lucky Garak was now to have his dear doctor and his brilliant young apprentice in one magnificent Julian-shaped package. No pity. Medical concern clearly delineated from personal interest. 

Message received, my dear doctor. 

Garak spared a moment to be grateful that the fact of his species spared him from the indignity of tears. Then, he did the only thing he could do. He picked the book back up, and continued to read. 

_I stood there struck dumb with confusion. Holmes, ill? He had looked thin and grey when we first met, but dying? A sardonic voice from the next room made us both start guiltily._

_"Oh come now, Watson, don't frighten the child with your exaggerated worries." Holmes came to the door in his mouse-coloured robe. "'From the grave' indeed. Overworked, perhaps, but one foot in the grave, hardly. I admit that Russell has helped me relax, and God knows I eat more when she is here, but it is little more than that. I'll not have you worrying the child that she's in any way responsible for me, do you hear, Watson?"_

_The face that turned towards me was so stricken with guilt that I felt the last of my wish to dislike him dissolve, and I began to laugh._

_"But, I only wished to thank her - "_

_"Very well, you've thanked her. Now let us have our tea while Mrs. Hudson finds some breakfast for us. Death and resurrection," he snorted. "Ridiculous!"_

I'danian spiced pudding, indeed. 

Well, if Bashir might never be able to see himself in The Neverending Sacrifice, at least they could find pieces of themselves and each other in this most admirable choice of works. 

This was a message Garak believed because it was not said in straightforward words, but in gestures and in struggles and in sacrifices. It was a gift Garak could not have truly accepted, had it been given any other way. 

To be seen. To be seen, and not flinched from. To be seen, and loved. 


End file.
